This invention relates to wheel chairs, and more particularly to a collapsible wheel chair with a platform device for moving a disabled person from the wheel chair seat to a seat on a vehicle such as an automobile and to an aircraft seat.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that all programs and services are available to everyone, including persons with disabilities. Many advances have been made in this respect, however with some notable exceptions. Most transportation service such as some local city buses have provisions for persons with disabilities. Many sidewalks and building entrances have been designed to provide for persons with disabilities. Notably absence is the provision for moving persons into and out of an aircraft.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,278,387, discloses a device for transferring a handicapped person from a wheel or handicap chair. A pair of tracks are extendable from a motor vehicle. The pair of tracks extend from the motor vehicle, engage the seat on the wheel chair, and then retract into the motor vehicle to move the seat into the motor vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,354,791, discloses a wheel chair construction which includes a seat that is laterally movable on a pair of tracks that engage a similar set of tracks for moving a handicapped person from the wheel chair. The seat has rollers that roll in the tracks. The person is manually moved laterally with the rollers and tracks.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,305, discloses a seat on at wheel chair that is movable backward to position the seat over a toilet seat.
The invention is to a folding wheel chair assembly and at least one fold-down platform that permits the person on the seat to be moved laterally to another seat. The fold-down platform is on a mounting rod that folds upward and them may be turned to a position behind the wheel chair seat out of the way when the wheel chair is being moved from one position to another. There may be a fold-down platform on each side of the wheel chair so that a person maybe moved from the wheel chair from either side.
The technical advance represented by the invention as well as the objects thereof will become apparent from the following description of a preferred embodiment of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and the novel features set forth in the appended claims.